July 29, 2007

Impeachment and accountability

by Kagro X

Josh Marshall notes, in the wake of the NYT editorial, that the impeachment of a cabinet secretary has only been undertaken once in our history, and noting "the big 'unless'":

Unless the president is party to the wrongdoing that placed the cabinet secretary in jeopardy. And that is clearly the case we have here, which explains the historical anomaly that the possibility of Gonzales' impeachment is even a topic of serious conversation.

[I]f the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds [to] believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty...

That quote was originally offered in a Daily Kos piece, in connection with the Scooter Libby pardon. But it's equally applicable to the Gonzales situation.

As is this, from eminent historian Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.:

Obviously a President need not be impeached because an obscure official buried deep in the endless bureaucracy, someone he does not know and probably has never heard of, does something wrong. But it is an extraordinary idea that a President is not responsible to some degree for the behavior of those intimates with whom he chooses to surround himself in the White House and the Cabinet.

Schlesinger, writing here in May 1974, is speaking of the impeachment of Richard M. Nixon in an article I've cited numerous times before entitled, "What if we don't impeach him?" (PDF) And his arguments are eerily prescient of the predicament we face today:

The practical point is irresistible. If Mr. Nixon did not know what his right-hand men were doing, it was only because he did not wish to know. He had every facility in the world for finding out. And if Congress should decide that a President is no longer to be held broadly accountable for the conduct of his most personal appointees, it would obviously encourage future Presidents to wink at every sort of skulduggery so long as nothing could be traced to a specific directive from the Oval Office.

What, exactly, do you think all this, "I don't recall" business is designed to do? Wink, wink.

Schlesinger continues:

The constitutional point is equally irresistible. Madison was the father of the Constitution. The First Congress, because it contained so many men who had been at Philadelphia in the summer of 1787, has been called an adjourned session of the Constitutional Convention. Madison in the First Congress successfully argued that the President must have power to remove his appointees. Assuring the President this power, Madison said, would "make him, in a peculiar manner, responsible for their conduct, and subject him to impeachment himself [Schlesinger's emphasis], if he suffers them to perpetrate with impunity high crimes or misdemeanors against the United States, or neglects to superintend their conduct, so as to check their excesses. On the Constitutionality of the declaration I have no manner of doubt." If the Ninety-third Congress should now decide that it understands constitutionality better than Madison and the First Congress, if it concludes that Mr. Nixon has no responsibility for the conduct of his closest associates, it would confirm Mr. Nixon's success in breaking the Presidency out of the historic system of accountability and in fastening a new conception of Presidential responsibility on the American republic.

What would that "new conception" be? Why, that the elections are the "accountability moment," after which, what the president says, goes. With the imprimatur of the people.

"We had an accountability moment, and that's called the 2004 elections."

Remember that?

It's just as Schlesinger predicted. Jumping ahead a bit in his article:

Future Presidents will be tempted most of all to assume that the American people in the end really prefer a regime based on and limited to the idea of quadrennial accountability so long as it is divorced from the stupidity of a Watergate burglary.

Elections are the extent of the people's ability to demand accountability, in George W. Bush's mind. And he wants them to be the extent of accountability in your mind, too.

The failure even to hold Gonzales accountable for his part in this would be a complete abdication of the Congress' responsibility to preserve and exercise an absolutely critical element of the ongoing scheme of accountability designed by the Founders. It was to the Congress that the Founders entrusted the only mechanisms of mid-term accountability that could be brought to bear directly on the president and his administration. Giving that up would be an error of incalculable magnitude.

Comments

This is a point that needs to be shouted from the rooftops. If the President has a cabinet official who is clearly breaking the law and the President does not remove him, the President should be impeached. That is exactly what the founders intended. We need to get this idea into the national discourse. It is simple, straightforward, and puts the Bush/Cheney/Gonzales crowd on the defensive.

Truly, and I am not trying to be shrill here, but if the Democratically controlled Congress, most significantly the House of Representatives, does not own up to it's sworn duty to uphold and protect the Constitution it stands in no better shoes than the President turning a knowing and willful blind eye as contemplated by both Madison and Schlesinger. The current position of our Democratic Congressional leaders is both an abrogation and dereliction of duty.

Or, as John Nichols said on the Bill Moyers Journal, "Impeachment isn;t a constitutional crisis; it is the cure for a constitutional crisis." We are already in a constitutional crisis, and the sooner Congress realizes it the better. It is naive in the extreme for them to just think that they can wait it out, and that things will really change in January 2009 if they do nothing.

this is a important piece. it is simple, clear and understandable by the majority. A question that harks back to Mondale's op-ed piece this morning - Answering to No One - is whether this clause would also apply to Cheney, as he has to go at the same time or earlier!

And the reason the Democratically controlled Congress is showing low approval numbers is that they've failed to remove our troops from Iraq...the reason the were voted into office, according to the polls.

I think we're on the impeachment road these days. It's starting to take on a certain inevitability.

If there is no impeachment -- i.e. no accountability outside of an election -- there will never again be justice in our nation. The criminals that were elected and then appointed think that they are immune to prosecution.

The House of Representatives is slow to act. Unless there is impeachment, all of Congress is declaring itself to be irrelevant in running our country. Representatives and Senators are taking themselves out of the game when we badly need them to do what we elected them to do.

I was reading Mimikatz' posting a little earlier, and I pray that Congress will keep itself in session. The cost of doing that, versus the cost of cleaning up behind this administration is peanuts! This is just a little more important, in my book, than going out to raise money for their campaigns.

Mimikatz,
your poll is particular to the War, and I agree that to me the War is the major thing, but in general for Job Approval
the Poll that popped up immediately when I put in the number 23 which I remembered was:

June 13, 2007, MSNBC

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19209733

Job Approval
Bush 29%
congress 23%
Country in Right Direction 19%

"Also in the poll, only 23 percent approve of the job that Congress is doing, a decline of eight points since April. That number is within striking distance of the 16-percent rating Congress held in October 2006, just before Republicans lost control of both the Senate and House in last year’s midterms."

Karo X,

I am not sure of Cheney's ratings. Why don't you share?

Semanticleo,

some (maybe even you, I don't keep track) have implied or outright said that I am paid to post here. ~I don't recall.~

Everyone should note that despite all sorts of wild accusations and putdowns, I have retained my good humor and fresh insight.

Jodi's full of it. Same pattern over and over. Snark - Gets eviscerated - Bashes bush for running the war badly - makes one reasonable comment - Then back to snark once someone allows that she made a reasonable comment.

I'm happy to accept impeachment of Gonzales as an opener, but it doesn't really address the problem that's at the heart of things.

I'd be happier still if I believed that Congress would follow the facts and their logical implications to their natural conclusions, but I doubt they'd be willing to do so. I think they'll take Gonzo's scalp (if they take anyone's) and be happy.

Kagro, I admit that is a distinct possibility; but there appears to be no way to crack the nut without impeachment of somebody. As long as we can get the investigative foot in the door, and that foot is allowed to walk where the evidence leads, I'll take my chances. Maybe things will suddenly break open; but at this point, I would be willing to accept the Gonzales opening gambit.

i really do wish that commenters here would simply not respond to comments by "jodi" they do not like.

there is something about that commenter that is rather pathetic,

a kind of willingness to be abused.

i note that most of the baying commenters are male,

no doubt that's biology.

but biology is not entirely destiny and i think it would be to the greater benefit of kindness and tolerance if the guys here would give up their sport of expressing contempt for this strange commenter.

i have been annoyed by many ill-intentioned commenters at many blogs.

generally they like to lead other commenters on a wild goose chase,

making first one claim,

and, when that claim has been demolished,

coming up with another not related.

the typical troll m.o., then,

is a series of verbal nah-nah-nah-nah from behind various right wing stumps.

but there is a less common version of troll that seems inclined to seek attention through comments that are certain to draw harsh responses.

jodi is in that mold.

there really is neither much intellectual content nor serious disputation in any of his/her comments.

What else could POSSIBLY explain the Dem's process all along? Sure sure, I know, the Dem's are USING the process, as it SHOULD be, yadda yadda yadda . .

Only let's not fool ourselves people, the dem's are as guilty as the pub's.

If they weren't, they'd have GONE to impeachment LONG ago, with all we knew or suspected, THEN!!! \

So, my question to the blogosphere (and THIS most excellent site of knowing folks) is WHAT DO THE PUBS HAVE ON THE DEMS!!!

Gotta be ugly . . . and I'm thinkin, this is BEYOND corporate ownership of our politicians . . . this goes to the Dem's being as equally COMPLICIT and GUILTY as the Pub's, for nasty, nasty things.

It's how the system is gamed top to bottom . . . so, what's the dirt on the Dem's . . . we clean THAT house, and we start a revolution of UNTHINKABLE change in it all . . . and maybe, win back our Republic, too . . . maybe.

Well, I suspect that the dems are worried about getting dirty in an impeachment trial. Again, I don't know why this analogy works so well for me, perhaps familiarity, but like the abused wife who has raged in response to the abuse, who has battered her children in to submission so they won't get beaten by the ultimate abuser, who has responded with power and control to power and control, this is the behavior that OFTEN stops a battered wife from seeking help.

In the recesses of her mind, she feels guilty, she feels she is an accomplice to the behavior. Everybody gets dirty in the process of power and control. It's the nature of the beast. It's the nature of war.

There is no other option than "we the people". Somehow we have to keep the pressure for accountability on. WE have to have an understanding for the "whole" picture.

Shows that It is getting paid for trolling. Boss....Rove? Is this on the job training for Rover's professional lying? Maybe Regent mail-order-lawyer's internship? Does It realize that It isn't going to share in the Repug booty It is trying to help generate? (Trickle-down happens as long as you don't expect the trickle to be more than inflation).

Pity poor shitstain. It has to make up something to tell it's kids it did for a living while It's friends destroyed the constitution (while the kids are in jail for saying bad things about Cheney on a cell phone).

No sense of shame ?
No sense of irony ?
No feel for the obvious ?
No problem with self contradiction ?
No idea what is so funny ?
Sign up today !
1660 Pennsylvania Ave.
Ask for _____
Say turd____ sent you

Jodi, Nice try, but I doubt anyone here has forgotten that I'm the guy who first defended you, and am the guy who bent over backward for you. Play your games with someone else - or better yet somewhere else.

Greenhouse,
I have noticed that jodi only bashes Bush in the area of handling the war, never in respect to how we got in the war or any of the other areas of talking point. I think the "handling of the war" is an allowed area of criticism.

Not that I think she's trolling directly for Rove, but seems to me to be program trolling of a specific design. The pattern is too consitent.

I am dead set againstGeneralissimo Bush on
1) the conduct of the war.
2) on his social security privatization plan'
3) cutting the children out of medicaid
4) immigration
5) on the Tax Plan (If you go to war, you pay for it!)
and probably a few other things, that don't come to mind on a hurry up post.

About going to war, I wanted to slow down, and wait for the Inspectors, but there were reasons to go even without the "atomic hole card" they used. I didn't personally buy them all, but hey when most all the intelligence agencies of the big countries said Sadam had Chemical and Biological weapons, and he gave the Inspectors great difficulty if not outright refusing to allow them in, and he tried all the time to shoot down our planes, there was some serious reasons to think the fellow was up to something.

After a while you have to let the guys in charge make decisions. Remember the Congress went for it too.

With Hindsight it was a terrible mistake because everything Bush touches falls apart.

The congress went for it, as did I and a majority of the public ONLY because Cheney and Bush deliberately cherry picked intel, buried intel that didn't suit their purposes, and fabricated a niger uranium story.

You would be up on that if you were paying even one bit of attention to the ernest, accurate, and insightful post that have been here every day for a couple of years now.

The rest of it is trying to get back to that original crime, which you constantly attack with snark and unfounded contempt. We've had this conversation before.

I'm not so sure about your "All the big countries intel" remark as well. I've read plenty that makes that comment spurrious at best. Hell, our legitimate intel apparatus was pretty sure he didn't. But for some reason you don't want to seem to know that.

EW can explain it to you, but she can't understand it for you.

And no one here has a problem with reasonable ernest dissent, but snark and open BS ain't gonna fly.

I try not to respond to jodi 'cause it's a wasted effort, but I have noticed on posts that appear to be particularly compelling for impeachment of Bush, troll traffic picks up -- coincidence? Hardly.

Kagro, not much time to add to the conversation today, but wanted to thank you as others have for the tremendous work you are doing to press for impeachment.

bmaz, I'm all for getting my foot in the door and if impeaching Gonzales is it, then fine. But ultimately, if the Dems fail to impeach Bush, then they will have trimmed a diseased branch, while leaving the infested trunk behind. And in the end, the precedent of the unitary executive will be achieved.

I think the point that Bush's tolerance of AGAG's malfeasance is enough to impeach BUSH is the key. Of course, we have so many keys now, that like larue I think the Dems intransigence can only be due to questionable behavior of their own that they are trying to keep quiet.

Phred - As you know, I completely agree with that. I have had an absolutely nasty day here, including a complete computer fritz not to mention having to deal with cops and feds the entire time trying to get a half mil of property back for a client. My whole life (other than wife and daughter) relies on the info in my MacBook; I am in a world of hurt without it. At any rate, using a borrowed laptop, I made a few comments here and there today and one of them was specifically that the impeachment investigation of AGAG musty be broad enough to probe all the executive office misdeeds for exactly the reasons you state. Eh, you know where I stand, no reason to go back through it. Don't worry, I am not wavering on anything; but ANY impeachment investigation is warp jump ahead of where we are today.

Hey bmaz -- sorry my friend, you totally missed my intent. I would never ever accuse you of being wishy washy on impeachment :) My fault really for trying to chime in when I was in a hurry.

My comment was intended to reflect my concern that if they go after Gonzo without also impeaching Bush and Cheney we'll be up a creek without a paddle. I have heard too many people say that there isn't enough time to conclude impeachment proceedings before the elections (a false claim, but it shows up pretty regularly). So then, if they spend however long it takes on Gonzo, before they proceed against B&C, then I'm afraid that excuse might prevail and we'll be stuck.

I didn't mean to imply you considered only impeaching Gonzo as sufficient because I absolutely know better. I was just reiterating my endless refrain that the whole damn group of them has to go and the sooner the better. I too, am so frustrated with Congress shirking its responsibility, that if beginning with Gonzo is what it takes to get the ball rolling, that's fine by me. I just want to make sure they treat it as a first step and not an end in itself.

I hope tomorrow is a better day for you and your Mac! I, too, am a diehard Mac user -- most of the time it is great, but then there are days...

IMPEACHMENT NOW! NANCY PELOSI IS WRONG! I'm very concerned with Nancy Pelosi's stand that Impeachment is off the table. She is wrong. Impeachment is a cure, not the disease. If we don't impeachment them all (Bush, Cheney, Gonzo) the presidence will be set. Politicians don't like to give up power, the next president will not want to give up power. The consitution is more important than the President, or the congress. Nancy Pelosi swore she would protect the constitution. Has she ever read it? Bill Moyer's Journal had a great discussion on this with Bruce Fein (Conservation Constitutional Scholar) and John Nichols (The Nation). We can't let this administration off the hook. 46% of America is calling for impeachment. If we ever needed it, we need it more now than ever before in history. Bush's comment that the constitution is just a piece of paper, shows he has no reguard for it. We need to hammer the PRESS, hammer the HOUSE of REPRESENTIVES to get this on the front burner, and keep the heat on. It will not divide the country, it will unite the country. Remember...its a cure, not the disease.